How Much Is One Million in Sugar?

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Big numbers.

A bowl of white granulated sugar. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How long would it take you to count to one million?

Eleven and-a-half days, if you counted at the rate of one number a second.

This activity helps you see how much one million of something is.

Supplies

White, granulated sugar

Measuring cup

One sheet of black construction paper

Instructions

Measure out one-quarter cup of sugar

Pour it onto the black construction paper

What Should Happen?

You have just measured out one million granules of sugar.

Why Is This Important?

Numbers with lots of zeros, like million, billion and trillion are hard to understand because it takes so long to count that high.

A useful way, though, to understand how really big they are is to compare them to something else that is big. Of course, with a big number, you have to count very small things if you’re going to keep it in a small space. Thus, the sugar granules.

That will be an interesting experiment, Grandma KC. She probably has more patience than I. I tried to cut the problem down to size by spreading the sugar out on a plate, then cutting it in half, several times, but never got to a point where I would actually count all the grains!

I love that this lets the child see a million of something she can actually hold in her hand! When we say “a million stars” that’s too big to even imagine! But here we are holding a million of something! Cool! 🙂